Montpelier Approves State's First Downtown Heating System

Montpelier residents rallied at City Hall in support of the district heat project Wednesday.

When
Liz Edsell and her husband were deciding where to buy a home last year, they
found that nearly everycentral Vermont town was tryingto address its energy future.

"It's
something that Vermonters want to see local action on - not just leave it to
the state, or not just leave it in the hands of the energy companies," Edsell
says.

Montpelier has a plan. It wants to help expand a state heating
plant and then pipe excess heat to public and private buildings around the
downtown and sell it. Proponents say it's a good environmental investment. But
there's been plenty of debate about the idea.

Now, Montpelier's City Council has approved a plan to upgrade and expand the
state's wood-fired heating system for downtown buildings. The
Council passed the plan during a special meeting Wednesday
night, reversing its decision to kill the project.

VPR/Kirk Carapezza

A wood-fired heating plant in Montpelier provides heat to state buildings. City officials in Montpelier want to help expand the plant and then pipe excess heat to public and private buildings around downtown in this narrow valley.

That
decision came after more than 60 percent of voters approved contributing $3
million to the $20 million project.

"The
residents of the city of Montpelier
have had the foresight to approve this project," says Governor Peter Shumlin. His
administration gave the city a deadline of this Friday to decide whether to go
ahead because the state wants to order new boilers.

"We
know that it is going to save us all money, reduce our carbon footprint and
serve as an example of how we should be heating cities and towns across Vermont," Shumlin says.

But
some city councilors worried about the finances and whether there will be
enough customers for the heat. So, last week, the council voted, 4-to-2, to
kill the plan.

"It's
not the role of the City Council to predict fuel prices," says Tom Golonka, who
was among the four opponents on the City Council. He sits in a booth at a
restaurant in the Capital Plaza hotel, which, he says, illustrates his concerns.

"The
connection cost for this building was about $130-$180,000," Golonka says. "That's
a large capital investment for a private company to absorb."

Golonka
says he'd prefer Montpelier use the funds to retrofit its own buildings, instead. But Golonka is
flipping his vote because the state has agreed to a proposal that he says helps the
city keep control over costs.

Once the bidding process is complete and costs are known, a
building that could benefit is the Union Elementary
School.
Last year, this school burned more than 60,000 gallons of heating oil.

Liz
Edsell, field director for the Vermont Public Interest Research Group, sits outside the school on a picnic bench. She and her husband bought a house here last year, and she thinks the district heat project makes sense for Montpelier.

"The
cost of oil is rising and rising, so having our city buildings be reliant on
that means we are facing a future of rising taxes," Edsell says.

"This
is not rocket science," argues Montpelier Mayor John Hollar, who also supports
the project."Our country has
been founded on municipal investments and I don't see this project [being]
markedly different than other municipal investments."

Hollar has successfully renegotiated a deal with the state that he says
will guarantee that certain charges to the state will be phased in based on
usage by city customers.

"The challenge that we
have with this project is that we won't know precisely what our cost are until
November," Hollar says. "The state has to order its boilers within the next week or so, so
we've got a brief gap where one of us has to take a leap of faith."

Hollar says he's confident that the city's cost will be well below its revenue
because he has already convinced the state to share in any potential risk.

And those councilors
who had opposed the plan hope that new agreement with the state will allow the
city to create public-private partnerships in the future.